Monday, June 30, 2008

Another eventful weekend: new arrivals at our house and my new love

As I said in my title, another eventful weekend at our house!

Friday, we picked up our vegetables from our CSA farmer: scallions, zucchini, lettuce, strawberries, and 2 kinds of peas. We've eaten about half and should eat the rest before our next box arrives! So far, we've only not eaten a small amount of spinach from the first week, and that's because I stored it improperly in the fridge, so it was bad by the time we went to eat it.

Friday night, Thomas was playing video games and I was reading on the couch. Rocky decided he wasn't getting enough attention, so he was adorable, as he so often is. He climbed on his cage, right at Thomas's eye level, and hung off, swaying and repeating, "Hi Rock!" until he got what he wanted: attention.
Beeps, my newspaper destroyer, decided to hang out on the outside of his cage, pull the newspaper through, and shred it. He is so messy!
Saturday I volunteered at the rescue, where I got to hang out with my new love. Don't tell Thomas or Max! This guy is so special and whoever adopts him will be one lucky person. I know I can't take everyone home, and birds like this amazing greenwing macaw make that difficult.
My backyard wildlife sighting are nowhere near as fun and exotic as those of Shannon, but I make do with what I get! We've had quite a few bunnies outside lately, which has been fun to watch. This guy was eating the weeds growing in our brick patio, so he was doing us a favor. Bring some friends! We have lots of weeds!
Sunday, Thomas and I went strawberry picking, and ended up with a little over 9 pounds of strawberries. I just love this time of year, for precisely this reason. Fresh picked strawberries are so much tastier than anything I've been able to find in the store (and much cheaper!) I've been eating them pretty much nonstop and brought a bunch to work today for lunch. We may try to make some strawberry food items, if we don't eat them all first!As for the new arrivals at our house, they are incredibly difficult to capture on camera. Yesterday, I was watching our aquarium and noticed a tiny fish swimming up towards the top. We haven't added anything to our tank since September 1, 2007 -- 10 months -- so I knew this guy hadn't snuck in on some plants or with other fish. Our fish had babies!

We think he's an Australian Rainbowfish, but he's so tiny yet that he could be a Glowlight Tetra. Last evening, we then saw 2 more extremely tiny fish babies -- they were pretty much just an eye with a tiny amount of see-through body hanging off the back. This morning, I could only find one of the tiny babies and couldn't find any right before I had to leave for work.

The largest fry had grown measurably in the 24 hours I'd been monitoring him, and I think he's big enough to survive in our tank. The tiny guys might get eaten by the other fish in our tank, but we have so many plants in there they should be able to find hiding places.

What's kind of funny about this is that our tank really needs to be cleaned, and I'd hoped to do that before we have visitors on Thursday. But now, I'm too worried about disturbing the water quality and hiding places of the babies, so tank maintenance will be put on hold until these guys are much bigger.

In this video, you can see the largest baby swimming around. I hope to get better pictures of him once we can clean the algae off of the glass (apparently my otos and pleco are on strike) which won't be until they get bigger.

7 comments:

Stephanie said...

That's so cool about the baby fish. Our angels laid eggs once but then they ate them all. :(

Greenwings are really sweet. They are my favorite of the large macaws.

Mary said...

We've had aquariums for over 10 years, and this is the first time we've had fish babies. We have had eggs before, but they've always been eaten, like what happened with you.

I go back and forth on whether I like the B&G or GW macaws best. I think my answer changes based on which macaws like me at the rescue. Right now I'm a GW fan :)

Sharon said...

The veggies & strawberries look yummy.

Do your Grey's eat strawberries? I can't get Mooky to even try one!

I hope the Macaw finds a good home!

Mary said...

I was going to post a picture of Max eating one, but it was blurry. She grabbed the biggest one out of my bowl, took a tiny bite, and dropped it on the floor. She also was licking all of them in the bowl this morning, but I think she was just drinking the residual water after I washed them?

As for Kika, last night Thomas went around offering them to everyone. I said, "Don't bother giving any to Kika as she won't eat them." Wouldn't you know that she ate an entire strawberry -- as long as he was holding it for her? She wouldn't eat it when I held it for her.

Good luck -- I've been trying to get Max to eat apples for years.

I don't understand why Mooky (or my guys) won't eat them -- so tasty!

Anonymous said...

Loved your stories about CSA, the big macaw, and Peter Rabbit. He's awfully cute - but glad you do not have a real garden out there. I think your stories are great! I look forward to reading them every day.

BTW, Sam won't eat strawberries either. But he does love apples, banana, blueberries, mango, and plums. Can't understand why not strawberries...

Anonymous said...

Hooray for tiny fish babies!

Fresh strawberries? I am so jealous. There are few things better than fresh strawberries.

Mary said...

Shannon --

Thanks! I think our containers are larger enough to keep the rabbits away, but you're right in that I probably wouldn't think they were as cute if they were eating things I wanted instead of weeds :)

I can't get anyone but Calypso to eat plums. Aren't they so stange with their preferences? Apples are Rocky's absolute favorite, but Max won't touch one.

Sammi --

I completely agree! We're almost out of strawberries so may need to pick some more. I totally overindulge when they're in season and spend the rest of the year waiting for June.

Thanks for commenting :)